An independent health journalist writes about Alistair Purple who has benefited from iolife treatment, and now helps others through the Trust that he has set up in Newcastle.

Alastair Purple was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in October 2002 – and told by his consultant that he had three years to live. Alastair was 41 and a father of seven children.

Alastair, now 46, who ran his own joinery business making everything from staircases to conservatories, was stunned and scared. His symptoms, which began three years earlier with stiffness, cramps and muscle weakness in his left hand and arm, meant he had become physically unable to continue that work four months before the diagnosis.

“The consultant explained that I could try the only drug available which was not a cure but may prolong my life for a few months,” he says. “Unfortunately the side effects meant I could not take it.”

MND is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which leads to muscle wasting causing loss of mobility, difficulties with speech, swallowing and breathing. It affects around 5,000 people in the UK where at least five people die every day from the fatal disease.

Alistair felt alone and wanted to make contact with other MND patients. So in 2004, after discovering an MND Drop-In Centre during a visit to his sister in Melbourne, Australia, he founded the Motor Neurone Disease Trust in his home town of Newcastle upon Tyne. It provides help and support to MND sufferers, their carers and families

The following year, Alastair was recommended to a complimentary therapy centre in Scotland, which offered Iolife (known by some as CellCare) treatment which works by creating a minute current throughout the body to stimulate the body’s natural defence mechanism. Other MND patients had found the treatment helped to ease their symptoms.

Alastair was given a two and half hour Iolife session every day for five days. “At the end of that time I felt as though I could run all the way back to Newcastle!” he says. “It gave me a real energy boost and helped to ease the cramps.”

Convinced of the effectiveness of the machine  - the brainchild of John Wetling, who has used the treatment on the Royal Family in his home country of Denmark - Alastair set about raising funds so that the Trust could buy their own.

Since then the Trust has raised over £20,000 to buy four Iolife machines and provide patients with MND with treatment free of charge. Alastair is regularly contacted by people throughout the UK and across the world, from America to Israel to India, who have found his details on the Trust website.

Where possible, if people cannot travel to Newcastle, Alastair has ‘loaned’ the machine to patients in other parts of the UK.

“The most important thing to say about the machine is, it is not a cure for MND,” says Alastair. “But from my personal experience and those of others I know, it can alleviate the symptoms and help to give a better quality of life.”

Kathy uses the Drop-In centre and has been treated with Iolife. “After three treatments, she came in looking very happy, with a big smile on her face,” says Alastair. “The previous day she had managed to get out of the wheelchair and stand in her kitchen, baking cakes for her grandchildren – something she had not done for years.”

Because people react to the treatments at different times – some after the first session but others not until they have had three or four, Alastair recommends that people do not buy one immediately, but wait until they have experienced the benefits.

“When you are diagnosed with a terminal illness for which there is no known cure, you are entitled to seek help in any way possible,” he says. “And we h